Tuesday

It’s the treacherous intersection between being a good enough football player to warrant consideration, and yet not quite to the level where success is all but guaranteed.

As a walk-on wide receiver at Nicholls State University, the idea of playing in a game was little more than a pipe dream to Jeanpiere as he fought every day in practice for the recognition he knew he deserved.

Four years later, he left Thibodaux as the second most productive pass catcher in Colonels history.

Now, he’s trying to do it again in the NFL.

For the past month, Jeanpiere spent just about every day waking up at 8:30 a.m., eating breakfast and starting training outside at 10 a.m. at the EXOS sports performance training center in Phoenix.

He then goes inside to hit the weights at about 11:30 a.m. before going back out to the field to do position drills with the other receivers.

After a brief lunch break, players come back at 3 p.m. for another position session followed by another weight session in the afternoon.

It’s all in the hopes of getting noticed by a pro scout to earn a spot on a practice squad or maybe, he hopes, a legitimate spot on a roster.

There are no guarantees or even promises he’ll get a fair look. Many players from small schools get overlooked every year and there’s no reason to think Jeanpiere can’t be one of them.

But despite everything that stands in his way, Jeanpiere knows he has what it takes to be a NFL athlete.

“I’m training like I know I’m going to get drafted,” Jeanpiere said. “I get up every day and I’m ready to go to work because I know where i need to be. I know where I want to be and I know where I can be and I know I can play this game at the next level. That’s what pushes me every day to keep going. You don’t know for sure if you’re going to get drafted, but there’s not a doubt in my mind I’m going to make it.”

When he left for Phoenix on Jan. 2 this year, Jeanpiere had never been away from home for that long.

Growing up in New Orleans and playing at Archbishop Rummel before coming to Nicholls, he’d never lived further than a short drive from the Mississippi River.

Jeanpiere was set up with EXOS by his agent and later paired with Northern Arizona wide receiver Emmanuel Butler, who is considered by some to be one of the top overall prospects coming out of the FCS this year.

One of the preeminent training facilities in the country, Jeanpiere joined receivers from across college football from Ole Miss to Ohio State.

According to the company’s website, EXOS claimed 79 athletes from the 2018 NFL draft, including 10 of the Top 15 players chosen in the first round.

At first, many of the coaches at EXOS didn’t take Jeanpiere as a serious competitor. At only 6-foot-1, 175 pounds, he is a bit undersized from the prototypical NFL receiver.

But Jeanpiere, the son of a track coach, has always known his speed was his greatest weapon.

Even at Nicholls, Jeanpiere didn’t score many touchdowns — only three as a senior — but 19 of his 44 total receptions this season went for 15 or more yards as high school and college teammate Chase Fourcade’s favorite deep threat.

Jeanpiere said he tested out at a 4.38 in the 40-yard dash at Nicholls but hopes to hit a sub 4.3 if and when he pulls an invite to the NFL Combine at the end of April in Indianapolis.

Jeanpiere said one of his coaches was contacted recently to let him know that he is under consideration for a potential invite to the Combine, which would make him the first player out of Nicholls since Ladarius Webb in 2009 to snag an invite. Webb is the last Colonels player to be selected in the draft when Baltimore took him in third round of 2009.

“Outside of his work ethic, he can run with the best of them,” Nicholls wide receiver coach Sean Murphy said. “That’s something that you can tell from Day 1 when he got here. And for Damion, the harder the competition was, that’s when he played his best. He always played with a chip on his shoulder. You look at the greats to play this game, they all had a chip on their shoulder.”

Jeanpiere is getting some recognition at the moment after participating in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl this past weekend in California.

While he didn’t get much action in the showcase game on Saturday — players were limited to 13 plays each, leaving him with no catches on the day – he felt the experience was overall positive after spending much of the week practicing in front of NFL scouts and coaches.

He said several teams have reached out to him in the past few weeks with a few showing what he described as serious interest.

The general consensus was that Jeanpiere needed to bulk up a bit, setting his target weight at 185 pounds, but almost all feedback eventually came back to his speed.

That leaves him with a little over a month to up his stock and get ready for his Pro Day. Jeanpiere said he plans to participate in a joint Pro Day with Tulane in New Orleans, a common tactic for small-school players looking to get in front of more eyes.

“They like my game. They like my speed,” Jeanpiere said. “Everybody is just wanting to see what I do at Pro Day or at the Combine.”

The key to everything, though, is to stay positive in the face of being looked over for the more high-profile talent.

Few people outside of Louisiana can spell Thibodaux correctly, let alone point out on a map where the Colonels play.

Even after the most successful season in program history that saw Nicholls reach the second round of the FCS playoffs, only Jeanpiere and defensive lineman Ronald Ollie — most famous for his time on the football documentary “Last Chance U” — were the only Colonels to score an invite to a showcase game.

If Jeanpiere can’t find the motivation to keep working in himself, he will find it in fighting for all the future Colonels who want a fair chance to show off their talent, too.

“It means a lot to me,” he said. “Even being out there at the NFLPA bowl and out here when people ask what school I go to. I’m happy to say Nicholls State because they’ve never heard of it. I feel like I’m representing the school really well. It means a lot to represent a small school like Nicholls and be able to put the name on a big stage.”

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